Forty-Four Box Set, Books 1-10 (44) by Jools Sinclair Read Free Book Online Page B

town. Bodies can’t keep piling up, whether accidents or suicides, without the authorities becoming suspicious at some point. He might move on to another place.”
    I nodded.
    “We will find this guy and flush him out,” Kate said. “I’m not letting this go.”
    She took a long hit of coffee and looked around.
    “The thing that I don’t get is why you’re involved,” she said. “You just don’t need this in your life right now. This shouldn’t be happening to you.”
    “Don’t worry so much about my life,” I said. “I have plenty of fun hanging out with Jesse. It’s not all gloom and doom.”
    She sighed and took another long drink.
    “You know what I mean. These dreams, or whatever they are, must be related to your accident. And it seems the more we try to move past it, the more it tries to suck you back. Seriously, Abby, I don’t want you to get too caught up in any of this.”
    I reached over and grabbed her hand.
    “I would do anything for that accident to not have happened. Really, I would. But I’m alive, and that’s good too. I can’t just look the other way when someone is killing people.”
    I cleared my throat and tried to calm down.
    “Okay, Abby, we’ll work on this together. But not as your primary focus. Your primary focus is getting better.”
    I didn’t understand why everybody was always telling me that. I was walking now, even running when I had to. Sure, school wasn’t going that great, but I was passing. Besides, I only had a little more than one semester left there anyway. I thought I was doing okay, but sometimes when they made those comments about healing and getting better, it made me feel like I was crazy or something.
    “I don’t know if this helps,” I said. “It’s probably just obvious. But the killer doesn’t care about his victims at all. It’s a strong feeling. He doesn’t have any sort of regret or sadness when he kills them. He does it in a very matter-of-fact kind of way.”
    “Yeah, that makes sense. He’s a sociopath. No emotions, no sense of right or wrong.”
    “That’s why I know he won’t stop. But I don’t know why he’s doing it, what he gets out of it.”
    “Because he’s a nut, that’s why,” Kate said, slamming down her cup, her emotions rushing up, sharp and edgy.
    “Yeah,” I said. “I guess.”
    I closed my eyes.
    “Anything else?” she asked.
    A strong, dark feeling shot through my body.
    “Throwaways,” I said. “That’s how he sees them. They’re useful throwaways. For something, I don’t know what. He is saying this to himself. He believes it, too.”
    “That’s important, Abby. That’s a good clue.” She wrote it down in her notebook. “Can you actually hear his voice?”
    I concentrated again, surprised I was able to do this with people around. I could hear a whisper, a quiet voice coming from the same place where I drowned in those dreams.
    “Yeah, I think so,” I said. “But it’s very soft, like a thought.”
    Her phone buzzed.
    “Okay, I’ve gotta get going. I’ve got to write this up and get it in. I really want to find this guy.”
    Kate stood up and pulled on her Calvin Klein trench. She swirled the last of the coffee around in the paper cup and took one more gulp before throwing it in the trashcan.
    “It was awful, Abby. I’m glad you didn’t see her. I mean, see her again, dead in the ambulance.”
    She gave me a hug.
    “You know, there’s a lot of this kind of psychic stuff that nobody knows about,” she said, lowering her voice. “What I mean is, that your condition, it’s not so crazy. This stuff happens, it’s not so uncommon. And you’re not alone. I’m right here with you and we’ll figure it all out.”
    I nodded and it made me feel warm and safe when she said that. To not be alone. That meant everything, even if it wasn’t really true.
    “Are you going back to school?”
    “Naw,” I said.
    Some of Jesse’s senioritis must have rubbed off because there was no way I was